Hong Kong leader delays unpopular extradition bill, but activists want more

SINGAPORE - A sense of futility pervaded the throngs of protesters in Hong Kong this past week. Many said they chose to demonstrate out of principle, not because they believed they could prevent the passing of an extradition bill that would have left them largely at the mercy of the authoritarian government in Beijing.

Then the unthinkable happened. On Saturday, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that the proposed legislation she spent months championing would be suspended indefinitely.

The groundswell of resistance, it appears, was too large to ignore.

"There's a sense of victory that at least we were able to stop it for now," said Fernando Cheung, a legislator for the opposition Labor Party who, like many in his camp,